Starfleet Academy’s Deep Space Nine Homage

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Friday, 6 Feb 2026 04:34 1 german11

Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Season 1, Episode 5 – “Series Acclimation Mil”Tawny Newsome and Cirroc Lofton made Star Trek: Deep Space Nine fans’ dreams come true in Star Trek: Starfleet Academy episode 5. Written by Kirsten Beyer and Tawny Newsome, and directed by Larry Teng, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy episode 5 is a love letter to Avery Brooks’ legacy as Captain Benjamin Sisko.

Cirroc Lofton Was Instrumental To Avery Brooks’ Voiceover At The End Of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Episode 5

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy episode 5 concludes with a voiceover by Avery Brooks as Captain Sisko. However, the words Mr. Brooks speaks aren’t Sisko’s dialogue from a Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode, nor did Avery record new dialogue for Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. Tawny Newsome and Cirroc Lofton explain the origin of Captain Sisko’s climactic speech:

Tawny Newsome: So we knew from the beginning that the best way to honor Sisko and honor Mr. Brooks himself was with his blessing and with his involvement, whatever he wanted that to be. So, through Cirroc’s help, through his relationship with Mr. Brooks, it was actually Cirroc’s idea to use this recording that I’ll let him talk about. But we knew from jump. We were like, ‘We need him to be on board and him to know that this is a celebration and an homage to him.’

Cirroc Lofton: I just had the idea that it would be great to use this album that he recorded. He recorded this album called “Here,” and it’s a jazz album, beautiful. I listened to it on a regular basis, and I thought, ‘Can we find a way to get this in the episode?’ And so, Tawny and I got together. I handed her the CD that I had, and I said, Go…

Tawny Newsome: Very tactile analog process, like we had to go to a dumpling restaurant and hand over a CD.

Cirroc Lofton: I said, ‘Go listen to this CD and see if there’s something there that we can use. And we can get Avery’s voice on this episode, because I think that’ll be a nice special moment at the end, that will kind of bookend everything.’ And so it actually, by the grace of God, all worked out. I can’t even believe it.

Tawny Newsome: And I’ll tell you, John, the sneaky thing that we haven’t said to anyone else yet is that in order to get Mr. Brooks’s permission to license the track, we did have to sneakily let him know how it was going to be used. And so there may have been a little like telling Mr. Brooks what the content of the episode was going to be. Cirroc deserves an executive producer credit for this episode, because we had to do a lot to get it done.

Captain Sisko’s words, spoken as the camera fades from a shot of the 32nd-century San Francisco skyline (with a possible vision of Sisko in the clouds), have a powerful effect, as if the Emissary was listening to SAM all along, and finally speaks to her and the audience. Tawny Newsome agrees: “Yeah, it was very meta for Kirsten and I both. It was us reaching out into the void to Mr. Brooks to say, ‘Hey, we’d love to honor you. Here’s this love letter.’ And it’s SAM doing the same thing to Sisko. So it was very meta.”

As for whether Cirroc Lofton will get Avery Brooks to watch this very special episode of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, Lofton says, “I will let him know that it’s out there. I’m sure he’ll get some feedback somewhere if he doesn’t see it himself. But he was there with me throughout the journey of the process of this whole thing. And I do speak with him, and he’s been a guiding force in my life. And so, throughout the step-by-step process of this episode developing, he was aware of it. I had his blessing, and I was happy to get the opportunity to do this love story for Sisko.”

Avery Brooks Passed The Torch Of Emissary To Kerrice Brooks’ SAM

SAM accepts her role as the Emissary to her people in Star Trek: Starfleet Academy episode 5. However, in a very real sense, the episode was a passing of the torch from Captain Sisko to a new kind of Emissary with a new mission all her own. Tawny Newsome reveals that, during filming, Avery Brooks passed the torch to Kerrice Brooks in real life:

Tawny Newsome: One night when we were filming late, in the van on the ride to a sushi restaurant, me, Cirroc, and Kerrice Brooks were just going to go have a meal after we wrapped. And Cirroc got a phone call, and it was Mr. Brooks, and it was out of the blue. And he was able to put me and Kerrice both on the phone with them. I won’t share the details of the conversation, but what I got to witness was Mr. Brooks unequivocally handing the reins over to Kerrice, to this younger generation. And it was incredibly powerful for all of us.

How Cirroc Lofton Returned To Play Jake Sisko Again After 27 Years

Cirroc Lofton as Jake Sisko in Starfleet Academy

For Cirroc Lofton, the joy of being asked to reprise Jake Sisko in Star Trek: Starfleet Academy came with the difficult mission of keeping it a secret for over a year. This was especially challenging considering Lofton is a notable figure in the Star Trek community and co-host of the weekly podcast, The 7th Rule.

Cirroc now laughs about keeping his comeback as Jake a secret for so long, and why Star Trek: Starfleet Academy was the right place for Jake to return: “Yeah, I’ve been excited for a year inside my head about this. I couldn’t wait for everybody to see it. Starfleet Academy, it’s a perfect segue for Jake, who was the youngest kid on Star Trek, to now be a part of welcoming and ushering in the next young generation of Star Trek cast members. So I mean, there’s so many meta levels to how this makes sense in so many different ways, from honoring the old to celebrating the future, to the Dax character, to all of these things that just tie in to make this a special episode. Kerrice Brooks brought it to life.”

ScreenRant: Tell me about how this process came about. How did your guest spot come about? Because I remember STLV 2024, I remember you and Tawny having dinner. I remember thinking way back when, like, something’s up here.

Tawny Newsome: I mean, I probably started talking to Cirroc about this when our season one writers’ room started in spring of 2023. Before the strike, before this episode was explicitly a Sisko episode. I mean, I started pounding my fist on a table demanding it be a Sisko episode. And like I said, I knew from jump we needed to get Mr. Brooks’s blessing and involvement, and so I immediately went to Cirroc. I said, ’Let’s go to lunch and let’s talk about how we can do this together.’ So that’s why he needs to be an EP on this he was in there.

Cirroc Lofton; This was another kind of full circle moment for me. They film (Starfleet Academy) in Toronto, and after the end of Deep Space Nine, actually overlapping the seventh season, I did another show, and it was filming in Toronto. The first time I lived outside of my mom’s home was when I lived in Toronto to film this show. And so, getting a chance to go back there kind of brought back all of these memories of me being in Toronto right on the tail end of season seven.

And now doing Star Trek in Toronto, it meant a lot to me to be there and do it. Keeping the secret all this time was probably harder than actually doing the project. Because (that secret was) incredible work. I wanted to say something so badly. People asked me, ‘Do you think you’ll ever be on Star Trek again?’ I’m like, ‘Maybe.’

Cirroc Lofton Wasn’t ‘Rusty’ Playing Jake Sisko Again

ScreenRant: I interviewed Kerrice Brooks the other day, and I was teasing her about you a little bit. Because, you know, it’s been 27 years since you played Jake. So I was like, ‘Was he rusty?’

Tawny Newsome: Like, no. I can say as a writer and a producer, no, no, no rust whatsoever.

Cirroc Lofton: I was excited. I was nervous. I was like a kid in a candy store all over again. And actually, there were some people that I didn’t have scenes with who I’m now seeing as I’m watching the show, I’m like, ‘Oh, you’re that guy and you’re that guy,’ but they were just around the set and introduced themselves. I worked with Kerrice most of the time. I remember Tawny was there on the set. So I was happy to have somebody there and just talking me through the scenes and being there with me. That was special.

But there were other people that I would have liked to have met. Holly Hunter is fantastic in this show, and I’m enjoying her performances. I would have loved to have met her. Didn’t get a chance. And Bob Picardo, another guy I love, just from seeing him everywhere. But I got a chance to really get a one on one moment with Kerrice, and we really worked these scenes out together. And the reason why it shines is because she brought so much to the table.

Cirroc Lofton Never Thought His Star Trek Comeback Would Happen

After waiting for 27 years to play Jake Sisko again, Cirroc Lofton becomes the first original cast member of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (Michael Dorn’s Worf joined in season 4) to reprise his role in live-action. But for a while, as Lofton watched his colleagues return in animated form in Star Trek: Lower Decks, he doubted Jake would ever return.

Cirroc Lofton: It was a moment that I thought would never happen. But Tawny made it happen. She gets all the credit from me. I just thought it would never happen. But I will say this: what was important for me in this particular episode, and what made something special to me, is that Avery Brooks, as Captain Sisko, did so much for Jake and Cirroc, so they’re kind of intertwined together.

Lofton also praised Kerrice Brooks’ performance as SAM for anchoring Star Trek: Starfleet Academy episode 5 and explained how Jake Sisko paid forward the love and support his father, Captain Sisko, gave him to SAM:

Cirroc Lofton: What I thought was special about this episode was SAM’s character needed somebody to help give her support and give her confidence, and that’s what Sisko did for Jake. And I feel like Jake now is finally getting a chance to pay that forward to SAM’s character and say, ‘Let me be somebody in your life who can fill you up with confidence and help your self-esteem, and let you know that you are everything that you want to be. And anything is possible for you.’

I think having that word of encouragement, that’s the paying it forward, that’s the completion of the cycle. I got it from here, and now I give it back here. And I think that’s what we all should be doing in our lives, paying forward the blessings that we get, paying forward the gratitude, the opportunities. That was a special thing for me to do as Jake.

Tawny Newsome Reveals The Origin Of Star Trek’s New Dax

Tawny Newsome explains the creation of her surprise character in Star Trek: Starfleet Academy episode 5, Professor Illa Dax, and the vital function the new Dax plays for SAM: “Kirsten and I designed Professor Illa. In such a meaningful episode where Jake Sisko is going to come back, we needed a shepherd who felt worthy of that. And so Illa bringing back Dax felt like the right call. Someone who it would make sense for her to have the only copy of Jake’s book, someone for whom it would be meaningful to have a moment with at the end, when SAM is done talking to Jake. It was really important that we protected the legacy. So that’s how we built Illa.”

Illa Dax is also a hybrid of a Cardassian and Trill, two of the species that played significant roles in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Newsome explains why this was important and how she was cast as Illa:

Tawny Newsome: (Illa Dax) being a Cardassian, I believe, was Kirsten’s idea. I believe we were actually given a list of different aliens. And we knew we wanted a combination, just to show how far different cultures have come, not necessarily to say exactly where the Cardassians are in the 32nd century. But just to give a nod that, hey, you know, some shit has changed, and future show runners maybe get to determine exactly what that was in the canon.

But we just really wanted to give a nod to the complexity of the cultural experience of the Cardassians at this point. So she was built very, very carefully, and then I came in as a very late addition, as the person who would play the role. And I’m just so honored that Noga (Landau) and Alex (Kurtzman) and Kirsten were all behind me in getting to do that.

ScreenRant: It’s great. It was so good to see you in live-action again. At first, I was literally looking at the screen, like, ‘Wait, is that Tawny?’

Tawny Newsome: Good. That’s the effect we wanted. We didn’t want someone to go. ‘Why is Mariner here?’

Tawny Newsome Doesn’t Know Why Nog Is Only A Lieutenant On Starfleet Academy’s Legacy Wall

Tawny was surprised to find she was listed as Admiral Tawny Newsome on Star Trek: Starfleet Academy‘s Wall of Heroes. However, Tawny doesn’t know the reason for one source of confusion from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Why Nog (Aron Eisenberg) is only ranked as a Lieutenant.

Tawny Newsome: No, I don’t know (why). There are so many people on the wall, or there’s people that are on the wall that I didn’t expect to see on there. I don’t know. I think that’s a question for the production designers, maybe. Not to throw anyone under the bus. I honestly wasn’t in the room the day they wrote all the names for the wall. I was very surprised to see my human self on there. I was like, ‘Oh, sh*t.’

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy streams Thursdays on Paramount+.

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